Fierce criticism of federal educational guidelines known as Common Core is growing among parents and students alike. Countless reports and examples suggest the curriculum values leftist social engineering far more than legitimate education.

One free-thinking eighth grade student in New York took the initiative to investigate mandates surrounding the program and offered her insight to her classmates. As a result, she now claims she is facing retribution in the form of a two-day suspension.

After determining required tests under Common Core are “set up for the kids to fail,” Seirra Olivero did some research and found out that students may opt out of the exams – a fact administrators apparently want to keep quiet. She recently informed other students at Orange-Ulster BOCES that they were not required to take the unpopular tests, explaining administrators told her to “shut [her] mouth and keep walking.”

Olivero was subsequently called in for a meeting with the principal, which she said was punctuated by the authority figure asking, in a rude tone, why she made such claims.

“I replied and said, ‘I did some research and it said they don’t have to,’” she recalled, indicating the principal continued berating her and refused her request to call home.

“Then she started to ask other questions and that’s when she started to interrogate me and I felt like I was being treated like a criminal,” she said. Ultimately, Olivero stormed out of the office and faced a verbal barrage from another administrator.

Advertisement - story continues below

Her mother, Carin Beauchesne, is defending Olivero, saying she felt her daughter was bullied by school officials.

“She walked away,” Beauchesne said. “She felt she was being treated like a criminal. She’s a 13-year-old girl; what would you do?”

Olivero’s complaint is now being investigated under the New York’s Dignity for All Students Act. The legislation is designed to protect students from attacks by fellow students or school staff members.

No matter the outcome of the investigation, however, Beauchesne said her daughter is not returning to the school, indicating she will be switching to a campus in her home district.

Common Core can perhaps be seen as a microcosm of America’s statist government. Subjects are not only being compelled to participate in this dreadful curriculum against their will; those who dare speak out against the indoctrination are, as this student can attest, being treated like criminals.